Archive for February 2009

The old time slapstick comedians like Laurel & Hardy knew what was funny.

When they slipped on a banana peel—it made people laugh.

But humor is subjective.

And what is hysterically funny to me—may provoke nothing more than a sour look from you.

HERE’S THE BEEF….

Lately—we’ve been having a little debate around my house about certain TV commercials for a couple of burger chains…

The Burger King commercials feature a mute “King” with a plastic-like mask that has a wide smile frozen on the face. The Wendy’s ads use part of the chain’s trademark red hair and pig-tails slapped atop “normal” people’s heads.

Scary or Silly?

EYE say both are scary. My family is divided.

A GRAVE SITUATION…..

Oh, it’s for real. Here’s the link to the actual cemetery plot in Oklahoma.

The story is the woman who died had a keen sense of humor and asked that an expired parking meter be part of her headstone.

The bottom line on the headstone, (which you can see if you click on the link and blow it up) says: “Our mom. Her humor lives on”

EYE say “silly”—others around here say scary.

TAX ME NO QUESTIONS….

Here’s a recent commercial for the H & R Block tax prep firm.

This is part of a flight of spots in which the company claims they’ll give your taxes a second look—find errors—and save you money..

But— is this particular spot scary or silly?

My vote: If EYE could find a way to wear this TV commercial—it’d be a great Halloween costume !!!!

Could you get by for one week without turning to the Internet for something?

Chances are you can’t.

But, old line newspaper folks are tossing about the idea that they should pull the plug on Internet news reporting for a week— just to show us how important newspapers are…

That’s an interesting thought—but do newspapers REALLY think they can turn back the on-line revolution?

As you can read here, the papers are upset that the Internet has been “poaching” their news for years—and they believe it is helping to hasten their decline.

That may be partly true—but the fact remains—newspapers have buried their heads in their ink barrels for years—and for the most part—failed to take full advantage of the electronic world the net offers.

Over 20 years ago— those who provided us with the daily printed word began to flirt with the the concept of putting content on line—and in the intervening decades pretty much haven’t moved beyond the philosophy that the on-line edition “won’t be much competition to the street edition” of the paper which is articulated at the end of the video below.

This is not an anti-newspaper screed. EYE am old enough to have started my career writing for papers.

But, as times changed, so did EYE, moving from radio to TV—and now into the ‘net.

There was a time when TV threatened to put radio and the movies out of business.

But both those mediums re-invented themselves and became more viable today than they were when they had no competition.

We all have the occasional tough time—a day from hell that would be best avoided by sleeping in…

But, some bad days are worse than others as you’re about to see…

WHY NOT JUST PAINT A GIANT BULLS-EYE ON HIS ROOF…

Back in November of 2007, a Bosnian man had a once-in-billion thing happen to him.

His home was hit by a meteorite—doing considerable damage…

But, Radivoje Lajic’s luck was about to get better—or worse—depending on your perspective.

Soon, thereafter his home was struck AGAIN by a meteorite.

What are the odds of that?

How about the odds of it happening three MORE times in the next few weeks?

The University of Belgrade confirms ALL five the rocks are from outer space.

Lajic says he’s being targeted by aliens— saying they’re mad at him for some reason as you can read here…

Science is looking for a more earthly explanation—to see why meteorites are attracted to the piece of land where Lajic’s home stands.

After five hits—he’s reinforced the roof of his home with a steel girder in case he’s showered with more extraterrestrial rocks.

In the meantime—it might be wise not to accept any invitations from him to hang at his home ’til someone can figure out why he’s such a “rock” star…

TICKET TO RIDE #1….

When you park illegally—you take your chances with a ticket, and maybe even the towing of your automobile….

That’s what happened to the owner of this car, but the towing job was—shall we say—not conducive to keeping the pain job on the car from getting scratched…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

TICKET TO RIDE #2…

The owner of this car didn’t have to suffer a really bad towing job—but—he too ended up with a few paint scratches on his car—along with the need to apparently replace four tires that seemed to succumb to friction and heat…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

FIRED UP OVER A HOSE JOB….

In this case—EYE am not sure who was having the worse day— the driver of the automobile parked illegally in front of the fire hydrant—-or the desperate firefighters who needed to get water…

…And in this case, your bad day isn’t over, ’cause HOW do you explain this one to your insurance company???

They’re estimating based on the size and duration of the fireball that it was less than 30 miles up when it put on its show.

We’re lucky it was a small object.

Despite the vast emptiness of space—this little old planet manages to get itself in the way of some pretty large flying rocks now and again—rocks that can change the everything if they make it all the way to the earth’s surface.

Just ask the Dinosaurs.

For years scientists have been on the lookout for Near Earth Objects or NEO’s that could come blazing into our atmosphere.

The thought being—if they can figure out what’s aiming at us—maybe they can prevent it from doing major damage.

And now—scientists may have that chance.

According to NASA’s Near Earth Object project— an asteroid named 1999 AN10 is coming darn close to earth in 19 years.

The space agency says the rock is a kilometer wide—and in 2027, it’ll pass with-in 19,000 miles of the earth’s surface.

How close is that?

Well, we’ve got a whole band of stationary satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the earth that are 23,000 miles above the surface.

As you can see in this chart— the asteroid will pass between THEM and the EARTH..

Astrologically speaking—that’s darn close!

Although NASA insists that’s not close enough to collide with the earth—it’s still TOO CLOSE to leave the asteroid unaffected.

The space agency admits the pass will be close enough that the Earth’s gravity will affect the asteroid’s orbit— meaning when it circles around for it’s next encounter—it’ll smack RIGHT into the earth !

Originally, scientists thought the collision would happen in 2039… As you can read here, they’re now waffling on that and say it’s more likely to collide with us in 2044 or 2046..

But, here’s the rub.

They really can’t say for sure because their data has a lot of uncertainty.

It could be worse—or not happen at all.

One thing that should probably be done—find a way to deflect 1999 AN10’s orbit when it makes it’s close pass in 2027…

Kennedy and Lincoln were tied for second, FDR placed 3rd and our first president was the last choice.

What does it say about us as a country?

You can put a lot of different spins on it—looking at everything from demographics of the respondents to the way the questions were phrased.

But, if you ask historians they’ll tell you it takes a good 70-to-100 years or so to really evaluate a president’s contributions— because you have to look at it through the filter of other events that occurred in the decades that followed their administrations.

By then, perspectives can change.

And who knows—in another 100 years—our greatest president could be Millard B. Filmore who was associated with the Know Nothing Party..